Student Quick Guide

Shepherd University has acquired a service with Turnitin.com that enables the academic community to check student material for improper use of copied material. This tools enables faculty to check a submitted paper for any suspected plagiarism. The University in no way implies that its students plagiarize. However, through comprehensive research it has been noted that a high proportion of students within higher education admit to using copied material from various places including the internet. (visit http://www.academicintegrity.org) Therefore, Shepherd encourages the use of Turnitin to heighten awareness of the seriousness of plagiarism.

Policy for Using Turnitin

Shepherd University Faculty are not obligated or required to use Turnitin. Turnitin is simply a tool that is available for the Academic community to utilize. Faculty members are strongly urged to use Turnitin in order to help students realize the difference between good and poor citation practices. It will also help students avoid the pitfalls of plagiarism through the use of Originality Reports.

Faculty must inform the students of their intention to use Turnitin through appropriate sources such as a syllabus. Students must be aware of the faculty member’s intention to use Turnitin.

Faculty must take precaution and use good judgment in their analysis and interpretation of a student paper that has been submitted with a high score. Although Turnitin is a valuable tool, it cannot, however, be the only determinant for a paper labeled with a high score on the Originality Report. Turnitin uses a scan method that can successfully denote copied material. However, the scan, by default, picks up material within quotes and bibliographies. Faculty must be aware and monitor the submitted material carefully.

Student privacy is a concern as it pertains to Federal Law procedures. Therefore, when a teacher chooses to submit a student’s paper through the use of “Quick Submit,” it is important to exclude information that would lead to a student’s identity. This includes using a student’s name, social security number, school ID number, etc. Not only should there be a faux name when submitting the paper, student information of any kind should not be included in the paper. Faculty members are encouraged to use a numbering system that would coincide with the student name. For example, John Doe would be assigned the number 001, Jane Doe—002, etc.

A Ruling from FERPA

Turning On “Generate Originality Reports”

It has just come to our attention that there is a brand new, formal FERPA ruling that says we are now allowed to require students to submit their papers to Turnitin and obtain a score of originality BEFORE turning in their paper to our faculty. This is an important modification from where we were in August. According to the FERPA ruling, Shepherd University must provide the student the opportunity to retrieve their Originality Report BEFORE submitting it as a grade. Therefore, faculty must turn on this feature for every class that is added to Turnitin.com.

To turn on this feature:

Login to Turnitin.com

Select the course

Select the “edit” button located toward right

Select “more options”

Scroll down and select “yes” under “Generate Originality Reports for submissions?

Scroll down – under “Generate Originality Reports for student submissions” select the drop down menu and select “immediately (can overwrite reports until due date)